On the Road to Mastery!

Month 12 – Internet Marketing Campaign Development

The Third Transformation

During the courses at Full Sail we have focused on various elements of Internet Marketing with intensity. At this point, after studying the individual parts we come to put our skills together for a working integrated marketing campaign. In the book Mastery I consider this the Third Transformation phase. “Through intense absorption in a particular field over a long period of time, Masters come to understand all of the parts involved in what they are studying. They reach a point where all of this has become internalized and they are no longer seeing the parts, but gain an intuitive feel for the whole.” (Greene 258)

It is time for us to go out and apply what we have learned in the world. This is not the end of the road to Mastery, but a new phase in our road to Mastery. This is the phase where we go out on our own and apply our principles to the world, not in the safety of our classroom. This is another exciting phase for us all that will complete our Master’s program journey this month!

At the very beginning of the program we were asked to create a timeline that would reflect what we expected our progress to be for the year about to unfold. My journey timeline is pictured above. Remarkably this timeline was almost predestined to me after I put it in physical form. I had opened BoostChannel LLC in 2010 and had no activity on it. I had just put it aside. Today it is scheduled for a full opening in March, just as the timeline indicated. The office is in progress, the website almost ready to launch, and I already have clients waiting.

My time at Full Sail has been remarkable and I have met so many wonderful people! Odd that it was an online class but I still feel an amazing connection with my classmates and professors. I feel a kindred spirit with many.

Full Sail teaches you to, “Learn how to learn,” and continue applying the practice of Mastery for your entire life.

This class was a little out of my comfort zone as I don’t think marketers in general are comfortable with “the argument”. We are more programmed to collaborate as a team and coming together with consensus without much debate. Greg did an awesome job of gently demonstrating to me that argument and debate can be good, and that it must be backed up with rulings and statutes. After all if we don’t consider each angle or perspective, can we really be sure we have come to the best conclusion?

My original goal for the class was to learn the intricacies of legal considerations one must realize when marketing on the Internet and protecting my organization from liability issues that could arise. This class delivered and beyond! Greg actually taught us to examine matters more like a lawyer. As marketers we tend to say how we “feel”, but in the case of legal matters one must back that up with law and statutes. This course actually taught me how to substantiate my point of view with law and statutes. (Although it did take the entire month to do so!) I enjoyed researching the answer to the “Defamation” discussion and finally realizing how to start building a case for my argument.

I have much more appreciation for our corporate lawyers and how they develop our “Privacy Statements” and “Terms of Use”. I appreciate the hard work they do keeping us in compliance and glad to have them on our team. As for sites I do as a consultant I have much more of an urgency for them to include these statements on their websites and I will draft a document I can customize to their industry, what information they collect, how they collect it, etc.

Mastery Journal Month 10 - Web Analytics & Optimization

As I prepare for this Mastery Journal post, I reflect over the past year and what my expectations were for the course from Full Sail University and the Masters in Internet Marketing. The journey I have been on in the pursuit of this degree goes far beyond my wildest expectations!

While we are receiving an abundance of knowledge that truly brings us to the Mastery level of our vocation, Full Sail combines uniqueness to the education that combines actual business application but brings the power of the passion of the soul of the individual to rise to Mastery! I have NEVER experienced this in any educational experience I have ever pursued before.

I just reviewed my Mastery steps and video from month one, as I do each month when I need to summarize the course and my quest for Mastery. I am so on target with my goals for the entire year, what my next steps are and how each course inspires me to the next step.

Although this month I did get ill and got a little sidetracke, even that made me ANALYZE my situation, and determine the next steps, just as analytics will do for a company.

I have been using Analytics for quite some time but never considered the BASIC concept of, knowing what the goals of the website and strategy were before charting the Analytics. Heck, we were just plugging in the code and following a basic dashboard. This class opened my eyes, to both the complexity and simplicity of Analytics.

We are still using the Free versions of Analytics, but Philip may help us all make a good argument of how paid services, although paid would be far more efficient. Easier said than done, but it is worth a try.

Mastery Reflection – Strategic Internet Public Relations

This class was very informative as we learned new techniques and were offered many public relation resources that I have never utilized. I chose the image above to represent the main lesson of the class.

A company or any brand NEEDS a strategy in place before there is a crisis.

Developing a well-planned strategy beforehand is the most crucial step a company or brand should take to guarantee successful public or media relations, especially in a crisis. If the brands voice seemed arrogant or non-caring before a crisis, the media and the public will have little to now sympathy for the brand. The media and the public may actually be looking to “get” the brand or teach them a lesson in a crisis. However, if the brand seems authentic, caring and engaging they may have brand ambassadors in place that will help the brand in the midst of a crisis.

This class was the first class in the Internet Marketing Masters curriculum that required we work in a group on a project. I was a little nervous at first as I have heard horror stories of working in groups. I was delightfully surprised as I wish I had this group on my team at work! All team members worked hard, gave great feedback and encouraged one another.

Carol presented the class with great material, helpful resources and always had great feedback.

Marketing Reflections – Advanced SEO

The Advance SEO class at Full Sail has saved me from relying on my past accomplishments and has helped me realize that I must constantly analyze and monitor all parts of my SEO efforts. What strategy has worked last week may get one penalized by Google the next. We must constantly learn, unlearn and relearn.

We must also embrace Negative Capability described in Mastery. “Furthermore, once we hold these ideas, to admit they are wrong is to wound our ego and vanity. Truly creative people in all fields can temporarily suspend their ego and simply experience what they are seeing, without the need to assert a judgment, for as long as possible. They are more than ready to find their most cherished opinions contradicted by reality. This ability to endure and even embrace mysteries and uncertainties is what Keats called negative capability.” (Green, p. 181)

I have had tremendous success with SEO and Internet marketing since 2010. The success promoted me to a higher level at work. I was to work on many different programs and projects. I was handling every aspect of online marketing for approximately 16 websites with different branding. Needless to say I was extremely busy in maintenance mode.

This class, at first caused me great anxiety, as it made me analyze where our websites were as far as SEO and they were not on mark as they should be at this time. We are losing the ranking we had worked so hard to achieve. I also realized SEO has changed rapidly and the demand is higher to seek additional training and outside consultants. I needed to refocus on SEO but I also needed to accept that I was not the “guru” anymore, at least not at this moment. That will take time. Given all my other responsibilities I realize we need to seek out expert consultants in each category of Internet marketing for our division to be successful.

This class has moved me farther down the path to master Digital Marketing. I have always preached how we must always adjust our Internet marketing efforts constantly, but had ignored this, as I was too busy just in maintenance mode.

Mastery Reflections – Advanced Internet Marketing

AIM has heightened my Internet marketing skills to a new level. Timi has challenged me, and led me to be a higher thinker. I love that this class is designed to work toward the final project in week four. The feedback from each assignment helps to create a more perfected IMAP version at the end of this class.

“Mistakes and failures are precisely your means of education. They tell you about your own inadequacies. It is hard to find out such things from people, as they are often political with their praise and criticisms. Your failures also permit you to see the flaws of your ideas, which are only revealed in the execution of them. You learn what your audience really wants, the discrepancy between your ideas and how they affect the public.” (Greene 83)

In week one through three we are taught and then sent to do a project on the teachings, the feedback has helped me to grow in Mastery of the subject. Week four has been spent reviewing the feedback, as well as, reviewing the content.

There is so much valuable information in this class I will want to audit in the future. When working a full time job it is hard to give both work and school the time and focus to really master the complexities of the subject. I have taken a huge step forward in my mastery of Internet marketing and never want to stop learning!

Mastery Reflections - Month 6

This month has been challenging for me, in a good way. Working for an insurance intermediary, anything we do for marketing is highly regulated, so letting a Brand Ambassador loose with social media, content and brand identity for the carriers we represent is almost impossible for us to grasp at times.

Also, when I was trying to do my assignments for Bayshore Solutions, I kept bouncing back to how I would apply the concepts for my real company. I had to apply the FOCUS part of Mastery from Green’s book. “Instead of flitting here and there in a state of perpetual distraction, our minds focus and penetrate to the core of something real.”(Greene 2). I felt my thoughts flitting from my real company to Bayshore quite a bit.

The course was full of new information and extremely timely. My company is now embracing this aspect of Internet Marketing and not shying away from Social Media. I recently have been invited to be on the National Thought Leadership Marketing Council for my company. I am fairly positive I would have never gotten this opportunity without the classes I have been involved with at Full Sail. Although I was a good Internet marketing professional, Full Sail has given me the knowledge and tools to master it and that is getting noticed at my company. This month’s council call was on the Brand Ambassador program we want to implement to our agents. I was chosen to take the lead on the project.

As I look back at the recent monthly marketing calls, I notice a pattern. The subject discussed each month correlates with what I am studying at Full Sail. I don’t think that is a coincidence. I think I am confident in the subject matter and take the lead on the Internet Marketing portion of the Marketing Council calls.

Greene, Robert. Mastery. Penguin Books, 11/2012. VitalBook file.

Image from http://www.buzzquotes.com/triumph-quotes, retrieved on August 25, 2015

Resources;

Photo From: Slideshare Archetype Overview with brand examples & character compass